" El primer idioma eusquera "teorías megalómanas sobre la lengua vasca en un manuscrito de 1778
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Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
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Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
Lejona, España
- Ofelia Rey Castelao (coord.)
- Francisco Cebreiro Ares
Éditorial: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
ISBN: 9788419679314
Année de publication: 2023
Pages: 1042-1051
Type: Chapitre d'ouvrage
Résumé
In this paper we present an anonymous 1778 manuscript addressed to the land-owner from Guipuzcoa Ramón María de Zurbano, in which the author asserts that Basque is the tongue in which God spoke to Adam and, thus, the very first language of Humankind. This theory, dubbed Basque-Angelism by Julio de Urquijo, was shared by the soldier Juan de Perochegui and, by the early 19th century, clustered among its supporters some writers such as Erro or Astarloa. Despite its presumed archaism, we consider that this point of view can be read as a development of the myths supporting the foral system in the Basque provinces, influenced by an enlightened interest in elucidating the origins of Humankind beyond the orthodox Biblical narrative.